


With Every Broken Bone

by wirewrappedlily



Category: Doom (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Post-Olduvai, This is totally for the sake of my angel and my muse, because angel deserves fluff, but please comment if the mood strikes, immortals are weird
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 10:30:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wirewrappedlily/pseuds/wirewrappedlily
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Because I knew something like this would happen. After all, I was there when it happened the first time."</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Every Broken Bone

John and Samantha Grimm had been in interrogation since she'd been patched up; John still bloodstained and messy and honestly starting to smell of sour blood bad enough that he had to stay still or stirring the air around him would make him gag. 

They were broaching hour ten, and neither twin had given up any information that contradicted the other's story, when the interrogation was busted in upon by a diminutive-looking woman in a suit with the air of a queen. 

"Just who the fuck--" The woman cut the interrogator off with a glance, looking back to John in the chair. 

"Three, two...one." She counted down simply, and the phone rang in the next breath, the interrogator throwing her an utterly suspicious look. "John Grimm, I'm Cali Hope; if you'd be so kind as to come with me, I've a car waiting to take your sister and yourself to a safe house I should hope you'll be more comfortable in. Sergeant Marcus, your ass is only being given a small reprieve from the reaming you're going to get for the treatment of two survivors of what must be the biggest scientific fuck-up since Nobel blew up his brother. Especially as they are the only two survivors." 

She strode out of the corridor, silently greeting a man built like a brick wall trailing Samantha. "Tim Michaels." He introduced himself to John, falling in step as Cali led him past their doorway. Samantha looked small and pale, startled out of her lab and probably going into shock now that her body was allowed to. She moved on crutches, keeping up easily enough with the way Cali moved through the endless-seeming hall. 

"Why is the one person who lobbied hardest to shut down research--" 

"Because I knew something like this would happen." Cali answered simply. "After all, I was there when it happened the first time." Pulling out a blade, Cali ran it over her palm, the wound closing almost before blood could swell to the surface. 

"You're..." Samantha looked like she'd just fallen down the proverbial rabbit hole, her eyes gone wide. 

Cali smirked, "I'm one of the originals." 

John looked at her, confusion and dawning horror all over his features, "No, you'd have to be..." 

"Older than most dirt? Yeah. With the serum, if you don't get injured worse than you can heal, you won't die." She sighed, leaning against the chrome siding of the elevator out of the base. "Sorry I couldn't get here sooner. I had to make sure once I retrieved you they'd be hard-pressed pulling either of you in for questioning again. You two did good, not telling them about the super-human aspect." 

"How did you know we knew what went on?" Samantha asked, her voice just slightly trembling. 

"Because the amount of blood John's covered in is kind of a dead give away." Cali flashed a look up at Tim, and he groaned. 

"Dead as in he should be. Very clever, ma'am." Tim rumbled, rolling his eyes. 

"You're no fun." Cali accused. 

"It's five in the goddamn morning. I'll be fun when it's a humane time of day." 

"What kind of favours did you use to break us out?" John asked quietly, his eyes worried and hang-dog. 

"The kind that one does not like calling in. I don't want you in their custody as much for your sake as it is for mine, John. Governments can't know about some things. You and I are one of those things." 

"And Tim...?" Samantha asked, looking up at the brick wall standing beside her. 

"I'm not like they are, ma'am. I'm something else entirely." 

"Tim and I found each other in Egypt a hundred years ago or so." Cali grinned, "Fun times." 

"Your definition of fun involves mummies, man-eating bugs, and the plagues of Egypt." Tim accused. 

"Your definition of fun involves a certain busty blonde, a beach, and occasion for sand to get places it ought not to go. I'll have my fun, thank you." 

Sam was trying hard to stifle a laugh, looking between the two friends with big eyes. John couldn't tear his eyes off of the tiny woman, a curl of instinct in his chest that he didn't know what to make of, telling him that there was something to worry about. "Sam, hows the leg?" He asked quietly, turning his eyes to his sister finally. 

"Right, you were hurt, weren't you? Tim, a little help?" Cali pitched in, lowering a polished hand to hover over Sam's hip, "You know, being around for as long as I have, you figure some things out. One of those things...is all that supernatural mumbo jumbo. It's all energy, you see. So I can use my energy to heal yours." Light began to well under Cali's palm, her smile turning somewhat dazed as Sam's cheeks flooded with pink, her eyes brightening. "You use energy to heal yourself, but you only produce so much..." she trailed off, staggering just slightly as she broke the connection, blinking herself back into focus, even if she seemed drained. 

"You...you healed the break." Sam stuttered, reaching down to lay a hand on her leg, still letting Tim support her weight. 

"We'll get you out of the cast once we get to the safe house, but I must ask," Cali led the way out of the elevator at last, "that you use either a crutch or a walking stick for a while, keep your weight off of the mending until it's rather cemented itself." She held the door open for the troupe of them, John half-tempted to insist she go before he would, but following his sister in the end. 

"I feel a little..." 

"Buzzed? Sorry, it's an--" Cali cut herself off with a yawn, "an after-effect. You're not used to my kind of energy." 

"And now you're drained because you siphoned off your energy to give to her." John intoned darkly. 

"Hardly drained, hot stuff; don't you worry." She winked at him, sidling over to the other side of the car as Tim opened the door for Sam and him, helping Sam in with an offered hand that seemed to swallow hers whole it was so big. Cali was on the other side of the limosine, facing them as they climbed in, Sam's crutch taken with Tim to the driver's area. "Now, here's the deal: You're keeping quiet, which is fabulous, and it offers you more protection than even I can give you. There were ten of us, originally, Sam, to answer your first question; there are now four, myself included. The other six have been picked off over the years. Things like the Inquisition, witch hunts, and concentration camps. Two of those six actually were killed by this shiny, shiny democracy, because they wanted to give the good guys a leg-up in the form of C-24. They killed themselves once they found out that their leg-up wouldn't be used quite so nobly. That's why you're more protected for choosing to keep quiet. No one will come after you, though the others may choose to trickle in from their various corners; it's been a while, as you can imagine, since we had new blood. Getting burned alive is unpleasant; getting stoned--i.e. being slowly crushed to death under large rocks, not drug use--takes about five times longer to kill us than it would a human, and that's five times longer in utter agony, FYI. If you continue to keep quiet, I can't even tell you the statistics of how much safer you'll be; if you need help, from any one of us, there's a number for you to call. We keep our own safe, because there aren't enough of us left. Finding friends like Tim, who are immortal in their own right, is rare and a blessing: immortality is not fun otherwise, John Grimm, believe you me. I had a family on Mars...a little girl, a sister. You found them, doctor. Named my sister Lucy." 

Sam's breath caught hard, and her eyes filled with pain as she looked at the haunted face of the woman who'd fought to close the dig, who'd saved herself and her brother from being brow-beaten for countless hours. "I...I would've..."

"You would've thought that I'd brought my family with me. I would've, had I known that I wouldn't have been able to go back for them. Earth was almost more inhospitable than Mars was, Doctor Grimm; I couldn't bring them here until it was safe, and I was the best person for the job of making it so. They died...waiting for me to come home with a sanctuary." 

Sam swallowed audibly, blinking, "I..." 

"Don't apologize, doctor. You didn't know that they were survived by a mother and sister; and you brought me a measure of peace, knowing that leaving my baby girl with her aunt was the right choice to protect her." 

"Why couldn't you go back?" John asked, his voice not unkind. 

"I wanted to, I would've had I not been forcibly stopped. We received a communique from home, that our safeties had been overrun, and our city had fallen to the monsters. We were told in no uncertain terms that we were the last vestiges of our home world, the only survivors. The communique ended with the doctor who'd sent it being burst in upon and eaten alive, so I hope you understand that there wasn't much doubt in the eyes of the others that we really were the last of our kind." 

"But you still wanted to go back." John allowed, his hazel eyes admiring now. 

"I had a sister and a baby waiting for me up there; I was hell-bent. So the others buried me alive, changed the Ark so that I couldn't operate it any more, and by the time I'd re-engineered it, it was far past too late." 

"You engineered the Ark?" 

"I did a great many things, Doctor Grimm. I was the queen." There was a light in Cali's violet eyes, like she knew Sam would understand. 

"You...you were the queen?" Sam apparently did, excitement flooding her features until she was alight with it. 

"I was the one C-24 was created for, truth be told." Cali sighed, "I was injured, mortally so. My father was a geneticist. He created C-24 to save my life. But, before long, people began to question. We didn't know that the wrong heart of a person would create so much horror...we were simply happy that the desperation caused by the accident had made a way to heal and help our people. We drove the monsters, few as they were, out. But their numbers began swelling, more and more, as people grew bitter that some were good and others evil. A black-market version of C-24 began to spread it like a cancer, and it was decided that in order to survive, we needed to leave our world behind. I'd come up with the Ark, I was damn sure going to be one of the first to ensure it was safe. When Earth was too volatile for us, a team of my best warriors were sent over with me, along with a healer who'd helped my father. It was my father that send the communique that we were the last of our kind, John Grimm. I watched him die for having saved my life." 

Her eyes were pinning John to the seat, and he managed to suck in a breath, understanding what she was trying to say with the severe set to her delicate features. 

"Weren't there humans on Earth already?" Sam asked, the doctor in her taking over. 

"In a way. Earth had begun producing humans, but it was rather like those stories of the Greek gods creating them to worship and die. They needed help like children. Ultimately, in order to keep me here, that's how it was sold. We mixed with humans before we found out the life expectancy was much shorter than our own, that's why there's such a variety." 

"Caucasian, Asian, African...you mean to say that--" 

"There's an underlying similarity to a number of races, doc, yet they're all different." 

"So if your people hadn't...mixed, we would be--" 

"More homogenic, though still not exactly the same." 

"So...if John has kids, would they be different?" Sam asked, her brow furrowed. 

"C-24 only passes biologically if both parents have it. Children with a normal person might be a bit smarter or faster, have a higher pain tolerance or get sick less, but those are what you consider normal genetic markers in some." 

Sam nodded, considering. "Would two parents who turned super-human be able to produce one of the monsters?" John asked. 

"It's never happened, to my knowledge, but it's a possibility. We'd have to look into that all-important ten-percent of the genome, and the genetic history: Evil, for lack of a better term, could be a simple recessive gene that could present from one generation to the next. For the time being, I suggest you refrain from hooking up with either of the two immortal women left from Olduvai." 

"Two including you?" Sam questioned, her eyes gone wide. 

"Yes, ma'am. We're greatly outnumbered, and yet we far out-gun." Cali smirked as the car pulled into a drive, Tim getting out to open the door for Sam, offering her his hand again. Cali gestured with her eyes, letting John get out first. 

"I'd assume, since your father was still alive, that you live in a predominantly matriarchal society." Sam babbled excitedly. 

"Actually, no. Leaders were chosen from the child of the best mind of the time--my father--and the best fighter--my mother. Genetically predisposed to strength and wisdom, if you will. My sister was older than me, but she was also meant for other things. She was born a mother, if you will. She cared for others more than anything, but she couldn't be a queen. When I came about, as my father told it, I was already queen: bossy from the start." 

"Were your parents arranged, then?" 

"Not as such, no. About twenty years sooner, and they would have been. But my mother saved my father's life during our last war, and he fell in love with her in such a way that she couldn't help loving him back, as much as she wanted to help it. Being the best warrior, she was made general: she was in control of the armies. Being pregnant meant she couldn't do battle with her men for an entire year. They were okay with that; she was not." 

"If it was the last war, though--" 

"Outright war, John. They were still employed to keep things like slavery and crime at bay. One queen for an entire planet, and each city ruled over by one member of a suitable family; it was a balancing act that worked wonders most of the time, but had the opportunity, if we'd been susceptible to as much ambition as Earth's history has shown humans to be, to crumble like a shortbread cookie in hot milk. The last war had been started because the king before me was a bit of a tyrant, and he was trying to overturn the laws laid down by those before him about things like slavery. Had it been up to him, my parents would've ended up slaves. But his own army rebelled against him, idiot that he was, and declared my mother acting ruler until I was born." 

"You told us that your daughter you had to leave behind," Sam began meekly, looking around the spacious house as Cali admitted them in, "what about her father?"

"His death made her my daughter. He was the general of my army, right-hand man as it were. He died fighting out the monsters, his baby only just being born. His wife didn't make it, and neither did he." 

"I would've thought that birthing--" 

"She didn't die from the birth. She died...for lack of a better theory, she died of a broken heart, three hours after delivery. There were no other complications, and I immediately adopted the little one." Quietly, Cali ghosted through the house, turning on lights and listing off rooms as they went, ending up first with Sam's room, on the ground floor, and then John's, just above it. "I didn't want to put you up a flight of stairs with your injuries, doc, I hope that's alright." 

"Perfect." Sam confirmed, her cheeks pink, "Thank you." 

"And we don't have any more beds down here, or I would've put you closer. We do, however, have a communications line through the house. Just ask for who you want, and the house will find them for you." Cali told John, "Now, there are a few things you and I need to go over before you can rest, John, but if you want, there are some clothes in your room, and a shower; and, doc, there's the same for you, though your measurements weren't on file, so they might be a touch over-sized. Freshen up, and I'll have something to eat ready when you are." Cali smiled kindly, drifting out the open door to Sam's room with an air of a woman whose fragility was mended with crazy glue: solid, but always with the threat of breaking once more. 

John gave in to the siren call of a shower, watching the water run crimson down the drain as he stood under the hot spray. He took a deep breath, twisting the shower handle until the water ran freezing, hissing as it hit him, but not moving to get out or get it warm again. He lathered up and rinsed off in the same icy blast, staying until his skin felt every drop like a bullet, halfway numb. He didn't have a damn mark on him that hadn't already been there, and the recoil that had gotten him had clinked to the floor when he'd taken off his clothes, the skin smooth and unchanged where it had pierced through a vein and threatened to kill him. He touched his hand, thinking of Sarge, and he punched the tiled wall, gasping slightly when the tile split under his knuckles. 

Finally, he pulled himself out of the cold, the towel soft and fluffy wrapped around him, warming him all over, and he hated feeling so comfortable after so much shit. There was a pair of sweats awaiting him on the soft, wide bed, along with a chocolate bar and a note that read 'Thought you could use some comfort food.'

He made his way downstairs as Sam emerged from her room with a cane in her hand, beautifully carved. She smiled at him, pulling him in for a one-armed hug when he drew close enough. He stayed stiff, but he allowed it, and she knew that as much as he loved her, he wasn't ready for comfort yet. They made their way down the hall to the kitchen, music low as Cali sang to herself distractedly, making, if John could tell, comfort food in the form of macaroni and cheese, greens, and chicken. She smiled at the twins as she turned, gesturing to a table in a nook just off the kitchen. 

"Alright, so: John, I've read your combat history--even the redacted crap--and I know what's happened. All of it. Because of this, I need to warn you about what comes next with C-24. It latches on to a person's goodness, as you two figured out; but it genetically predisposes you to...for lack of a better word, revile the bad. I'm talking nightmares, John; night terrors, in some cases. Reconciling the bad with the good is hard as hell, and C-24 will make you face that." 

"Do you have any theories about what it does from the other side?" Sam asked curiously, pulling apart a hot garlic-butter cheesy bun. 

"It's guesswork, really. I'd like to think that the good in people is put to rest when the monster takes over: that it's not them any more." Cali shrugged, setting a casserole dish on a cork pad with her bare hands, removing the lid to reveal the baked cheese over the macaroni and cheese beneath. John caught her hand the next time she ambled over, turning it so that he could see her palm. There wasn't even a red mark from the burns, her hand pale and smooth as she lifted a brow and smirked at him. She patted his cheek as she passed back into the kitchen for the last of the dishes, pausing behind the chair beside John. "Now, this is going to be a little tricky to explain, but you need to hear me out, okay?" She folded herself into the chair in a fluid movement, looking between the twins, "John, you're going to need about an eighth your usual amount of sleep, after this next sleep. To recover, you'll go into a stasis for probably about a day, but after that, you won't need a lot of sleep until your next high-stress, high-injury situation. You'll get nightmares, and you probably won't feel as though you're rested. Your brain works differently with C-24. It takes less sleep, and it doesn't need as much restful sleep. Your body heals itself like I healed Sam: it uses the energy it produces to quicken the rate of healing. That being said, when you don't need to heal, you're going to feel wired. We're talking, days of energy, without needing to sleep. Getting onto a regular schedule will be tricky: Personally, I sleep about four hours a night, after a day that would make a college student's head spin. Tonight, because I didn't have time to go for my run, climb, sparring exercise, or yoga, I won't sleep at all. Catch the drift?" John nodded, looking resigned. "You will, however, find yourself eating way more food than you usually do. Biologically, it doesn't make much sense: food is energy, but so is sleep. Personally, I just think it's the insomniac wet dream of a man who was routinely sedated by his colleagues to get him out of the lab, but there we go." 

John looked down at his plate, and over to Sam's. Cali hadn't taken a bite, and more than half the macaroni was gone, all of the greens, and most of the chicken; Sam's portions on her plate, untouched as she stared at him in something between wonder and amazement. He hadn't even noticed eating so much, though he had noticed it was good. Feeling his ears burn, John forced his fingers to release his utensils. 

Cali chuckled, "It's alright, kid, you need it. Don't be shy, I have seen worse, believe you me. I'm surprised you bothered with a knife and fork, I've come back from ops where I couldn't bring myself to be that courteous." 

John swallowed, looking over at her, "Ops?" 

"Just because two of us died doing the wrong thing in the war, doesn't mean we didn't all fight it." She smirked. "Eat, there's more food in the oven, and I've got a breakfast date with Tim in a couple hours anyway." 

"Where is Tim?" Sam asked curiously. 

"He's getting you some clothes that will fit, now we've laid eyes on you, and he's hand-picking the team to go recover the dead from Olduvai and the Ark complex." 

"I destroyed the Ark, we can't get to Olduvai." John muttered darkly. 

"It's not as destroyed as you think, but it will be once I'm done with it." Cali replied smoothly, her eyes steady. "I'll be on the team going to Olduvai." 

"You want to see Lucy." 

"Sethera, actually. And my little one was Myka, but yes; I need to see them before I end the only way to get there." Cali looked darker than she had the entire time they'd been there. 

The front door opened, and Tim called from the front door, "Έχουμε επιτυχώς αναλάβει UAC." 

Cali turned her head, replying, "Τα αποθέματα μειώθηκαν αρκετά για να κλείσει το τρελοκομείο?" 

"What language is that?" John asked. 

"Greek." Cali answered, grinning as she watched Tim fill the doorway to the kitchen, nodding the affirmative to her question. "UAC's stocks have dipped enough that I've been able to gain controlling shares of the company. Olduvai is dead." 

Cali straightened up, her chin raising in defiant victory and a dark light in her eyes. John could see her being a woman no one would ever dare to trifle with. "I'm out of a job, then." Sam laughed quietly. 

Cali turned mischievous eyes her way, "Sorry, but I can't risk my past repeating here. I'm aware you were tricked, doc, and it just means that I really won't be allowing Olduvai to reopen." 

Cali leaned back against Tim's hand when he rested it on the back of her chair, laying her head on his forearm for a moment with a quiet sigh. "Sooner really the better?" 

She tilted her head back to look up at him, "Can't put it off any more, Tim. Not with how much damage it's already done." She took his hand and let him pull her to her feet, smiling at the twins, "Get some rest; Sam, I'll personally bring your research down to you, and we can discuss the dig when I come back. John--" 

John stood up in an abrupt movement, nearly sending her tripping back into Tim, "I'm coming with you." 

"No, you're not." 

"Yes, I am. I don't know if there were more things up there or if something else just as fucked up is going to happen, and I'm coming with you." 

"You're ready to drop, kid; you'll sleep for a solid twenty-four right about now, and I don't need help that bad. Stay here, get some sleep; take care of yourself, if not for your own damn sake, then for Sam's. You're her baby brother, and she needs you. Believe me, I know." 

Tim watched her leave the room with admiring eyes and an amused smirk, offering John his hand to shake once she'd passed. "You're a good man, John Grimm. Don' worry, she'll be safer than you would up there." 

"Oh, because she's such a good fighter?" John hissed. 

Tim cracked up, shaking his head, "No, son; because she's older, and therefore stronger and faster. The older you get with 24, the stronger you get. I'm more worried 'bout what she'll be like back down here after." 

John sat back down at the table like someone had let the air out of him, looking over at his sister with troubled eyes, "She's gonna go up there and see all that...see her sister and her baby girl, all those bodies."

Sam reached out, laying her hand over his, "What do you want to do?" 

"How do we help her?" 

"First, we take care of ourselves, to make it easier for her to take care of us. Then...we'll figure it out from there." 

It was twenty-three and a half hours later that John woke up after that, groaning as he moved, his gut hollow and aching with hunger. He reached for the chocolate bar, tearing it open and devouring it, knowing that Cali had put it there knowing he would need it like this. 

It was early in the morning, and he didn't even know what day it was, the nightmares he'd been warned about hanging around him like a lead shroud. He rolled out of bed, passing a hand through his hair and padding quietly to his door, listening for anyone else in the house. 

He opened it carefully, wincing pre-emptively even though there wasn't a squeak, to find a note pinned to his door in Sam's hand-writing, telling him that she'd gone to a lab Cali had set up for her to get her research in order and encrypted. There was a quiet sob from down the hall, and John took off running, instinct carrying him down the hall and into a library. 

Cali was bent double in a chair, her face in her hands as her shoulders shook hard. She was breathing, when she could, in great, shaking gasps, choking on air as she sobbed hard enough to make her crumble. John ran forward on this moment of weakness, uncaring if she wanted to hide, the urge to make it better was so damn strong. 

She startled as he pulled a blanket off of the chair behind her, wrapping it around her shoulders and kneeling at her feet. "J-John...Sorry about this..." She choked out, her hands shaking as she tried to dash away the tears and hide them. 

"Don't be." He whispered, his hands warm against her flushed cheeks. "It was horrible."

She nodded, sniffing messily. He moved her hands away, wiping her tears away more gently than she would, looking into her violet eyes when he finally could. She swallowed, her hands on his shoulders, "I...I brought their dog tags. I know...they didn't have family." 

John made a sound in the back of his throat, pulling her out of her seat so that he could hug her tight, pain wrenching through his chest and his laboured breaths puffing her hair. She hid her face in his throat, tears sliding down his skin, but he really didn't care as he rubbed at her arms, willing warmth into her tiny, cold frame. He thought about the day after his parents' funeral; about what he'd done to make himself feel better, and Sam was right; he did figure out what to do next. "Come with me." He whispered, helping her up and leading her to an empty area of the room, laying down the blanket from around her shoulders and taking her wrists, "Every blanket and pillow you have, we're going to bring 'em in here." 

She looked up at him, understanding sparking in her eyes. She nodded, and in fast strides, left the room. John went to his own, gathering up the blankets and pillows on the too-luxurious bed, dragging them into the library and laying them down as Cali tried to balance precariously out of another room with a second pile. 

He took the two pillows on top that were threatening to fall from over her head, laying them down in the heap next to his own, and they both got to work making a nest, John burrowing down and then bringing her in with him, her back to his chest and his arms around her tight. "Better?" 

She nodded, laying a hand over his on her stomach. He carefully shifted her hair away from her neck, gathering the blankets more carefully around her. "Is it bad that I don't think I'll ever want to leave?" 

"No." He answered with the first smile he'd had in a while. She quieted, closing her eyes in the warm dark, but he was curious, "Why are you so cold?" He reached down blindly, feeling for a fault in having covered her, but there was none. 

"I run colder than you do. 'S part of the reason I don't like living in cold places." 

"Mars is colder than Earth, though." 

"We lived below the surface, with something very much like a furnace running constantly. We actually picked Nevada because it was just a few degrees colder than home." She mumbled, tracing the space between two of his fingers that he'd ripped open to send Sarge through the Ark. "What, exactly, did you do here?"

"I had a metal bar stuck through my hand in order to stop it from reaching my face, then I pulled it through my hand to kick my commanding officer through the Ark." She hissed in the dark, cradling his hand now. "Why aren't you and your people together?" 

"Save for two of us, who've been married to each other for millennia, none of us can face the memories seeing the others brings up; and it's easier to hide. We change appearances quite often, too." 

"I don't think I'd look good as a blond." 

"Grow a beard before going blond; use blond as a last-resort." 

"Are you blonde?" He rubbed a lock of her white hair between his fingers. 

"Not naturally, no." She chuckled. "Black hair, purple eyes, and silver-pale skin. And I don't tan. Or burn. I'm always pale. It's a pain in the ass." 

"No tan lines." John offered. 

"I look like a highlighter every time I have my top off." 

John cracked into a laughing fit. "Can't be that bad." 

Cali grinned, chuckling as she closed her eyes and yawned. "Intense emotions also help wear you out." 

He passed a hand through her hair, making it tumble away from her neck and over his arm, "Go to sleep," he whispered, "dream something sweet."


End file.
